The proliferation of the Internet has resulted in a thriving electronic commerce industry, where more and more products and services are available to consumers in a variety of non-traditional ways. For example, in traditional online consumer-merchant transactions, consumers typically provide merchants with transaction numbers (e.g., charge card numbers) from their existing debit, phone, credit or other transaction/service cards (e.g., American Express®, VISA®, MasterCard®, Discover Card®, AT&T®, MCI®, etc.). Some merchants or service providers, however, provide access to a web site with unique information, or other services, as opposed to merely selling products. Additionally, the web site provider may have a reason to want to provide a user with access to a site on a limited basis, in anticipation of the user electing to pay for products and/or services later. For purposes of this document, web site providers, merchants, service providers, or anyone else that may provide access to a service to customers may be called “access providers”.
Currently, an access provider wishing to provide access to a web site could simply issue to the user a temporary login name and password. However, access providers are hesitant to provide free products or services to a user without some sort of assurance that the user may, in fact, become a paying customer in the future. For example, an access provider may provide users with free temporary trials for a web service, but users could wind up gaining nearly unlimited access to the site by simply re-applying for another temporary trial when the last one runs out. A potential solution to this would be to require that the user provide identification information, such as name, address, and phone number, before receiving a free trial. However, such a solution requires that the user give out personal information to the access provider. Many users are reluctant to give out such information for fear of being added to a mailing list or some other misuse of the information. Additionally, there are some free products or services that may be embarrassing to the user, such that he would be reluctant to remove the cloak of anonymity provided by the Internet (e.g., online pharmacies).
Thus, what is needed is a solution that allows guests to access a web site on a one time basis without revealing personal information while still providing the web site provider with a measure of assurance that the customer has proper credentials and is indeed a potential customer.